Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin emphasizes that node centralization is a major issue on the Ethereum network and suggests making running nodes easier and cheaper to solve it. Currently, a majority of the active Ethereum nodes are operated through centralized web providers like Amazon Web Services, raising concerns about centralization points of failure for the blockchain.
Speaking at Korea Blockchain Week, #Buterin listed six key areas that require focus to solve centralization, highlighting the node issue as central to maintaining the Ethereum network's long-term decentralization. He proposed statelessness as a solution, which could significantly reduce the amount of data required to run a node.
However, Buterin admitted that resolving these technical problems would take time, with statelessness possibly taking up to 10 or 20 years to implement. Other important steps to decrease Ethereum centralization include simplifying documentation, lowering barriers to distributed staking, improving staking security, and offering more convenience for staking Ether.
